Isabela continued to surprise Elias, doggedly persevering through yet another grueling training session.
He had expected her to start flagging by now—maybe even give up after a week or two—but there was no sign of that happening. She had been pushing herself for nearly two weeks straight, and it filled his heart with pride. She was showing a resilience he hadn’t realized she had.
"So you finally leveled your Charisma, huh? Did something happen?" Vivian asked, raising an eyebrow after training.
"I just felt like it was falling too far behind my other attributes, so I decided to level it up a bit," Elias replied with an eye-roll.
"It’s not a bad choice, to be honest. That attribute is a lot more important than most people give it credit for. In fact, some would argue it's the most important attribute overall. That being said, it’ll be pretty much useless to you in the short term. Not only does it take forever to train the normal way, but it won’t even make you any stronger right now."
She gave him a playful wink.
"So… we’re not going to be training it just yet. We’ll wait until we start perfecting your foundation for real. I’ve got a little something planned to train that particular attribute quickly when the time comes."
Elias let out a huge breath of relief, like he’d just been granted a stay of execution. He really, really hadn’t wanted to train his Charisma the hard way. The process was time-consuming, tedious, and mind-numbingly boring. In fact, he resolved then and there not to even think about whatever plan Vivian had in mind for it.
Whatever would come, would come—but more importantly, it would come another day.
"You know… something interesting did happen in the dungeon yesterday," Elias said to Vivian as they made their way back to the house.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
"Oh, really? What?" she asked, a hint of curiosity in her voice.
Elias told her about his plan to form a party with Marco and Rebecca once they all reached the Beginner rank. Vivian didn’t seem surprised, though she did raise an eyebrow when he mentioned that he and Marco had already completed their first dungeon delve together the day before. He made a point of emphasizing that both his friends had already leveled all their attributes to ten, and that Marco had already left to perfect his foundation.
"And you want to reach the Beginner rank before he returns. Is that it?" Vivian asked, giving him a knowing smile.
"Yes," Elias admitted with a sheepish chuckle, a little embarrassed at being seen through so easily.
"Oh, don’t be like that, Eli. I know my own son," Vivian said with a warm laugh, a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. "And I get it. You don’t want to be left behind. But what do you plan to do about it? Pause your foundation training just to rush through leveling all your attributes to ten?"
"Well," Elias began, wincing, "yeah, pretty much. Come on, please? I’m pretty sure I’ve already got the hang of limit testing. If I can perfect my foundation before Marco gets back, we can start delving into the Beginner zone together."
"Fine," Vivian said.
"Really?" Elias blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected Vivian to relent so easily—he’d stayed up all night preparing arguments to plead his case.
"Yes, Eli, really," she said with a chuckle. "I know how much forming a party with your friends means to you, and I doubt you’ll find someone as suitable as Marco anytime soon. I liked that Rebecca girl too—she seems nice. Sure, she’s still far behind when it comes to fighting skills, but with some effort, she can catch up."
"So, here’s what we’ll do," Vivian said, her tone firm. "Starting tomorrow, just focus on leveling all your attributes to the cap. Once you’re done, I’ll take you to the Thermal Duality Temple in the Journeyman Zone to perfect your foundation."
Elias’s jaw dropped, his eyes widening in disbelief.
"Yes, Eli, we’re going to that temple," Vivian confirmed with a chuckle. "I wanted it to be a surprise, but there’s no point keeping it a secret anymore—it’ll be obvious once I start preparing for the trip. Anyway, we leave in two weeks. Make sure you’re ready by then. You’ll need to level at least one attribute per day, but I think you’ll manage."
With a beaming smile, Elias promised he’d hit the level cap well before the deadline. His heart pounded with excitement at the challenge ahead, and at the thought of finally visiting the mysterious temple he’d heard about for years.